West of Ireland landscape photography

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My aim as a photographer is to capture stunning West of Ireland landscapes at their very best and where possible from an off the beaten track vantage point. Growing up in rural Sligo I spent a lot of time exploring the great outdoors and I’ve always been drawn to this magical landscape. I hope this is reflected in my work, as a photographer the images I’m often most happy with myself are ones which were taken somewhere where I have a strong emotional connection with.

The format of photography I work with most is panoramic. I feel this wider view best captures Sligo’s stunning sweeping vistas; from the iconic slopes of its mountains to its dramatic coastline and lakes. When I come across a scene that I want to capture in a photograph the main challenge can be deciding what to leave out!

′A lovely visual pursuit of the lost and the daringly alive. History and landscape, colour and distance, stone and water, are honed and stitched together through a great generous lens that throws vast light onto a sense of absence and presence. I wish Ciaran well in his future as a photographer. Through his photos he is looking into the core.’

Dermot Healy - novelist, playwright & poet, Sligo, October 2008.

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"Good photography should be able to surprise us, most obviously by making us look at the world in a new way. The camera does not lie, anymore than poetry lies. And like poetry, the camera embellishes and enriches our experience of living in the world... This exhibition, through the skill of Ciaran McHugh’s work behind the lens, fuses together the man, his poetry and philosophy, and the place, Sligo, that was dearest to Yeats’s heart".